October 2018 Journal of the Institution of Environmental Sciences CONTENTS > How and why are the oceans changing?
he number of people living on Earth will grow to due to the scales of change and variability, and the FEATURE 14 nine billion by 2050, with the population rising commitment, infrastructure and investment demanded in Exploring submarine volcanoes EDITORIAL fastest in low-lying coastal plains and cities. Driven the marine realm. Added to this, integrated cross-sectoral Ken Rubin describes our changing view of the seabed and its inhabitants, as we discover T more about underwater volcanoes. by growing public and political awareness, attention is approaches in businesses and governments can bring turning urgently to the ocean and coastal regions to about changes through influence and participative provide security for people and economic infrastructure processes, as much as by legislation and by an integrated against the sea’s dangers, including maritime accidents, vision of the land–sea interface. Finally, there is a need FEATURE 27 extreme weather, flooding and submarine geohazards. for appropriate, smart financial and policy instruments The cetaceans of the British Isles and a changing marine environment At the same time, there is a focus on the sea’s ability to de-risk investment in sustainable activities and recover Chiara Giulia Bertulli and Peter Evans describe ongoing shifts in abundance and to provide food, clean energy and minerals, whilst the economic potential of industries eroded by past distribution. protecting and restoring the marine ecosystems upon ecosystem degradation. which 90 per cent of marine economic benefits depend. Systematic, geospatial, continuous data from the ocean FEATURE 38 Making sense of the global changes and variability in the is needed to raise our awareness of the basin–decadal Bringing oceans back from the brink ocean, such as warming, acidification, oxygen depletion context of ocean change and to monitor the effectiveness of Louise Heaps discusses the conditions needed for achieving a sustainable blue and the shifting of many marine species, will enable us management interventions. Technology revolutions in big economy. to unravel the causes and help our search for solutions. data, artificial intelligence and marine autonomous and The problems are fearsomely complex, not least due to robotic systems will have a major impact in developing cumulative effects over time and space and multiple the ocean economy. And, as with space science, many OPINION 46 feedbacks. All of these are driven by a mix of economic innovations originally developed to explore the deep Surfers against plastic incentives, policies, governance, human behaviours sea are now ready to be brought into everyday use for Paddy Fowler speaks to Hugo Tagholm about the crisis of plastic pollution in the and natural processes. So some marine systems are marine operations. oceans and on beaches worldwide. particularly stressed or vulnerable: This collection of papers explores these complex questions • coastal zones squeezed by sea level rise and competing through specific examples and looks beyond the problems demands; to possible solutions. • coral reefs, which cover just 0.1 per cent of the ocean’s INTRODUCTION 4 ANALYSIS 20 area but are home to 25 per cent of marine species; What do we know about our effect on the oceans? Improving air quality: How ports can help • polar regions, where the most rapid environmental Edward Hill OBE is Executive Director Carolyn Roberts shows how much we still have to learn about Michael Bull outlines the sources of air pollution around ports, the Earth’s largest ecosystem. and the solutions being proposed and implemented. change is occurring whilst becoming ever more of the UK’s National Oceanography accessible to human activities; and Centre. He is particularly interested in CASE STUDY 8 ANALYSIS 32 • the deep sea, a scientific, technological, economic and advocating the case for sustained ocean Climate Linked Atlantic Sector Science: A new UK marine Focus on the coast geopolitical frontier with vast economic potential but observations. He holds a BSc in Applied science programme Natasha Bradshaw outlines the increasing need for integrated fragile ecosystems. Mathematics from the University of Penny Holliday explains how sustained observations, the management of the coast to keep up with the emerging interest in development of models and technological advances will provide and pressures on our oceans. Sheffield and an MSc and a PhD in essential knowledge of and robust predictions for the changing The challenge now is to move beyond identifying Physical Oceanography from Bangor marine environment. problems to creating solutions. A key dimension that University. He has served on numerous frames solutions is the need for long-term perspectives, national and international advisory panels.
Guest editor: Carolyn Roberts is a water resource Cover design & internal illustrations: Lexie Mac is an management consultant and a Vice President of the illustrator working in London, she has a passion for the IES. She was the first Frank Jackson Professor of the environment which is explored in her work. She is also The environmental SCIENTIST provides a platform to discuss key issues within the Environment at Gresham College, formerly Director of the part of the IES administrative team and is currently environmental sciences, hosting original articles written by professionals, academics and experts working across the sector. Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Network writing and illustrating an educational childrens book The journal of the Institution of Environmental Sciences at the University of Oxford and currently Entrepreneur-in- on ocean plastics. The views expressed in the journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily Residence at Keele University. www.lexiemac.co.uk Volume 27 No 3 | ISSN: 0966 8411 reflect IES views or policy.
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nvironmental scientists are finding increasing evidence of human-induced damage to oceans Eat vast scale – the destruction of fish and coral ecosystems, massive gyrating pools of plastic refuse. Almost all the plastic ever produced is still with us, and according to research at the University of the Highlands and Islands, an additional 8 million tonnes of plastic litter enter the ocean each year. The effects are that about 100,000 marine mammals and a million seabirds per year are killed by eating plastic or becoming entangled in it – this includes fishing nets, which make up 10 per What do we know about cent of the litter. Australian research published by the USA’s National Academy of Sciences in 2015 found that 90 per cent of all seabirds had ingested plastic, and it took up 10 per cent of their average bodyweight. Harrowing photographs show that the contents of seabirds’ stomachs our effect on the oceans? include cigarette lighters, toothbrushes and tampon casings. Plastic has also been found inside turtles, fish and dolphins, and wrapped around organisms, effectively strangling them. By 2025, there could be 1 Carolyn Roberts shows how much tonne of plastic in the ocean for every 3 tonnes of finfish. we still have to learn about the DEEP OCEAN DATA GATHERING Earth’s largest ecosystem. Oceans are the least well-known major component of the Earth’s environment. Early exploration of the oceans depended upon imprecise ship surveys, done by dropping lead weights on ropes for depth measurement and trailing thermometers on cables. Painfully slowly, observations were built up into generalised maps. By the early 21st century, the complex configuration of abyssal plains, ridges and trenches reflecting the slow shifts of tectonic plates was sufficiently well known to appear on Google Maps. However, less than 10 per cent of the ocean’s 1.3 billion km3 has been fully explored, and marine scientists still have only a rudimentary understanding of anything below about 2 km.
The lack of progress is illustrated by the fact that, in 1960 when oceanographers Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard were lowered 11 km down into the Mariana Trench in a bathyscaphe they saw very little because disturbed sediment made the water milky; they thought they saw a halibut, but nothing else. The feat has rarely been repeated, despite Richard Branson’s plan for DeepFlight Challenger to ‘fly’ to the bottom of the trench in 2011; the trial was quietly abandoned in 2014 when the submersible proved unable to withstand the pressures at that depth and developed fractures. Even though we can walk on the Moon, human technology is not yet sufficiently good for scientists regularly to explore the ocean floor in person.
Conversely, data gathered by the equipment carried by robotic submersibles, long-distance drifters powered by wind, wave and solar energy, and sensors on satellites, have driven our knowledge forward dramatically. Autonomous vehicles can photograph and bring back sediment and mineral samples for laboratory analysis.
October 2018 | environmental SCIENTIST | 5 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION
Sea-bed instruments report changes in temperature, Not only do geological inputs influence the biosphere, current direction, salinity and algal content at increasing but the converse is also true: animals influence chemical frequencies. Satellite-borne altimeters, in combination cycling in the oceans. Large mammals play a previously with drone vessels, drifters or wave gliders and buoys, unknown role in recycling nutrients from ocean depths are enabling us to understand far more about the – as they swim, they stir up sediments with fertilising nature of the ocean, and the way water of different potential (including increasingly needed nutrients such characteristics moves around. as phosphorus) which allows them to disperse around the world. The activity of whales, dolphins and walruses Additional information is coming in from Earth is starting to be understood particularly as a result of observation satellites that were previously turned tracking. The Environmental Change Institute at Oxford off as they passed over the ocean in order to save University, for instance, has recently established that energy. The newer ones, including microsatellites, the massive reduction in large oceanic mammals such are now recording sea levels, wave heights and water as whales has reduced this capacity to a tiny fraction of temperatures with astonishing precision in real time. what it was before these mass extinctions. For instance, the new GOES-16 satellite from the USA’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NEWLY DISCOVERED SPECIES (NOAA) measures ocean meteorology from 36,000 km Humans may be unsuited to deep ocean exploration, above the Earth, and other satellites look specifically but other creatures do have the ability to withstand the at oceans, allowing heat exchange between air and extreme pressure, cold and darkness. New discoveries ocean to be calculated along with other parameters are being made every month in this, the world’s largest such as biomass content. Our static picture of the deep ecosystem. Deep-sea frill sharks and giant spider crabs oceans has morphed into video and data capture of are examples of larger organisms thriving in these day-to-day or even hour-to-hour changes. Whereas conditions, and about which little was known until previously we could only map underwater volcanoes, recently. The photographs of Alexander Semenov, for now we can catch glimpses of basaltic or mineralised example, working out of the White Sea Biological Station eruptions and discharges of superheated steam from near the Arctic Circle, show stunning and previously © wildestanimal | Fotolia vents as they occur. unknown worms, sea cucumbers, starfish, jellyfish and more types of fish than can readily be enumerated. DATA ON WATER MOVEMENTS Recent oceanographic research has yielded some Oceanic food chains rest on microscopic organisms. Increasing sea temperatures, together with increasing FRAGMENTED RESPONSES surprising results at the surface too, including 20 New discoveries on the deep Pacific Ocean floor by acidity from dissolved atmospheric carbon dioxide The evidence suggesting damage to the oceans minutes of record-breaking 19 m North Atlantic waves Danish scientists include bacteria and the distinctive and sea-level change, are also putting pressure on is now so clear that moves are afoot to attempt to in February 2013 – they were captured by an automated single-celled archaea that lack a cell nucleus and challenge the coral reefs. Many carbonate reefs (and there are preserve some areas from plastic pollution, ocean floor World Meteorological Organization buoy. The buoy is our ability to grasp what ‘being alive’ is. Found in now known to be silica reefs as well, recently found mining and overfishing. However, responsibilities are part of the network of marine automated weather stations vanishingly small numbers, maybe a thousand in a at 760 m in the Mediterranean, and a legacy of ancient fragmented, and despite the complex mixture of Marine that includes ships and satellites. Other networks, such cubic metre of clay, they have such a slow metabolism organisms such as sponges) are experiencing bleaching Conservation Zones (MCZs), Marine Protected Areas as Climate Linked Atlantic Sector Science (CLASS), are that it would take thousands of years for them to and subsequent death. Bleaching can be part of the (MPAs) and Integrated Coastal Zone Management also capturing data in real time, allowing scientists to generate enough energy to reproduce. They perk up and natural cycle of coral reefs, and is sometimes associated (ICMZ) areas, there is little overarching international gain more understanding of water–atmosphere fluxes divide when fed with a nutrient soup in the laboratory. with natural aerosols emitted from volcanoes as well policy for ocean management. Rather, there are complex of gases such as carbon dioxide. Interestingly, the latest research suggests that archaea, as the strength of the cycles of sea currents associated matrices for the protection of individual species and the in turn, are host to novel viruses and parasites about with El Niño. So it is sometimes difficult to establish prevention of land erosion, river pollution, overfishing We now know that the general water circulation of the which next-to-nothing is known. These and other that widespread bleaching on reefs such as the Great and similar challenges. But the lack of political will for oceans is dynamic, with a complex pattern reflecting extremophiles living on the nutrients generated by Barrier is definitely the result of water temperature enforcement allows the degradation of oceanic natural atmospheric drivers and the location of major continents. geologically slow processes support the global ecosystem change, but it seems likely. capital to continue. In combination with the challenges The Gulf Stream is only one part of a global conveyor in ways we do not yet understand, but which must be emerging from climate change, there must be moves to system where warm surface waters and cold deep waters critical to the planetary-scale carbon recycling system Cold-water corals are also likely to be affected, generate a genuinely sustainable blue economy. swing around the planet. Focusing in on the Atlantic, it on which we all rely. including common North Atlantic species such as has also been suggested that rapid ice sheet melting in Lophelia pertusa and Desmophyllum dianthus, which have Greenland might interrupt the patterns more typical of THE EFFECTS OF WARMING SEAWATER been shown to become more brittle with acidification Carolyn Roberts is a Vice President of the Institution of recent centuries. We know, for instance, that the Atlantic More warm-water species such as dwarf sperm whales, – a type of coral osteoporosis. The collapse of the Environmental Sciences; Professor of Environment Emerita, meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), which brings striped dolphins and Cuvier’s beaked whales are moving basic structural elements of a reef can initiate wider and Fellow, Gresham College, London; and is former Chair of heat from the tropics towards northern Europe, is highly north into British waters than previously, at least insofar changes in the marine ecology, with new species the Society for the Environment. Carolyn is a water resource seasonal and that it weakened dramatically between 2009 as fragmentary observations can confirm. However, arriving to replace some of the rarer incumbents. management specialist with many years of experience of and 2010. We can see that it is sensitive and volatile. The the picture is made more complex by the fact that some It may also leave coastal areas open to inundation research and consultancy work in the UK and overseas. decline was linked to an unprecedented and surprising northerly species are moving south, as evidenced by at high tides and in storms. Clearly, some form of rise in sea level on the eastern seaboard of the USA. Now recent sightings of a beluga whale in the Thames estuary protection is required, but it cannot just be a locally the results have to be incorporated into our understanding in 2018. Perhaps the increased southerly drift of pack based solution as in most cases this will not address of climate systems. ice from melting ice sheets is responsible. the fundamental cause of the bleaching.
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Penny Holliday explains how tarting in 2018, a new £22 million research programme will investigate the impacts of sustained observations, the climate change and human activities on the Climate Linked Atlantic SAtlantic Ocean, from the surface to the seabed and from development of models and pole to pole, including its adjacent seas and shelves. technological advances will provide Over the next five years, Climate Linked Atlantic Sector Science (CLASS) will deliver the knowledge and essential knowledge of and robust understanding of the Atlantic Ocean system required Sector Science: A new predictions for the changing marine by stakeholders to make evidence-based decisions. Research will focus on understanding and quantifying environment. climate regulation and ocean services, and predicting how the ocean will change as a result of climate change and intensified human exploitation. CLASS will build UK marine science on sustained ocean observation, world-class model development and state-of-the-art technology. This research programme is funded by NERC national programme capability due to its scale and complexity.
The RRS Discovery, one of the UK oceanographic research ships used by CLASS. (© National Oceanography Centre) CASE STUDY CASE STUDY
and to increase the variables that our robots can measure. inter-connected key knowledge gaps10,11 related to ocean These vehicles give us options to access remote and variability, biodiversity and the resultant functional difficult environments, allowing us to sample the ocean capacity of the Atlantic sector: more widely and efficiently. • The evolving state of the hydrological cycle and how CLASS SCIENCE PROGRAMME changes in ocean salinity may impact it in the future; The Atlantic is hugely important for the citizens • How physical and biological uptake, transfer and of northern Europe, including the UK, because the storage of carbon in the deep ocean interact to
Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) determine the North Atlantic CO2 sink, and the transports heat northwards and keeps north-west resultant effects on the production of other greenhouse Europe 3 °C warmer than comparable latitudes on gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide; the western margin of the Atlantic2. It also enables • How natural and anthropogenic drivers of basin and the North Atlantic to play a much greater role in the decadal changes are altering the Atlantic ecosystem, global carbon cycle than would be expected for its and the consequences for ecosystem functioning and size. The AMOC’s northwards supply of nutrients services; and sustains high levels of biological productivity in the • How the structure, diversity and productivity of subpolar gyre, leading to a strong biological uptake seafloor biological communities are changing in of carbon3. The overturning’s associated heat loss response to abrupt or episodic disturbance events facilitates intense solubility-driven uptake of both compared to long-term change. natural and anthropogenic carbon and its transport to depth on climatically important timescales4,5. The Atlantic supports spatially and temporally diverse biological communities in the water column6 and at the seafloor7, which constitute biodiversity reservoirs, act CLASS scientists use a package lowered to the seafloor from research ships to measure currents, temperature, to store carbon in the oceans, and underpin the marine salinity, pressure, oxygen and fluorescence. The device also captures samples of water for chemical and biological food web – in essence, the ocean’s natural capital. analysis. (© National Oceanography Centre) We now have abundant evidence that many features The global ocean is vital to the functioning of our planet. OBSERVATIONS, MODELS & TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT of the Atlantic Ocean and marginal seas are changing, It regulates global climate patterns by taking up 93 per CLASS ocean observations are building on a long including the strength of the thermohaline and cent of the Earth’s excess solar heat and redistributing it in history of programmes to measure key properties over wind-driven circulations, sea surface and interior the Earth system, including through a surface-to-seabed climate-relevant timescales (weeks to decades), and temperature and salinity distributions, ocean heat overturning circulation driven by exchanges of momentum, are part of globally coordinated programmes because content, air–sea CO2 fluxes, primary production heat and fresh water with the atmosphere. The Atlantic observing the wide expanse and depth of the ocean is and nutrient fields. The reasons for these changes Ocean is central to driving and regulating the overturning an enormous task. The essential ocean variables that are complex, and include natural internal variability circulation because half the global formation of deep CLASS is measuring are sea level, ocean heat content, in the climate system and external time-varying waters occurs here. The global ocean also modulates key ocean carbon storage and transport, surface marine anthropogenic forcing. Understanding and attributing biogeochemical cycles by taking up about 30 per cent of climate temperature and carbonate chemistry, and these changes is often confounded by the difficulty of anthropogenic carbon1. In the North Atlantic, large-scale surface plankton abundance and community structure. separating natural and externally forced variability, and flows make it a hotspot of carbon uptake, storing 23 per by the positive and negative feedbacks between them. cent of anthropogenic carbon even though it comprises CLASS is developing and running numerical ocean While global climate trajectories can be established only 15 per cent of the global ocean surface area. models for scientific analysis, predictions and scenario with some confidence, climate trends at regional and testing. We have a range of models for different uses, seasonal-to-decadal scales can be masked by variability The inherent variability of Atlantic Ocean circulation is all with a high-quality ocean as a central component. within and between basins. The natural variability in high and therefore the detection of anthropogenically The UK Met Office climate predictive systems use the both circulation and biological properties is so large driven change takes decades, but as we deploy new CLASS ocean components, and the physics models form that distinguishing climate-change driven trends may technologies to observe these dynamic processes, the the basic framework for simplified ecosystem models require 30 or more years of data8. impacts of human activities are becoming increasingly and complex Earth-system models. obvious and of growing concern. It is now clear that Changes in the Atlantic system have consequences the ocean plays a pivotal role in climate change To reach all parts of the ocean we use a combination of for the climate regulation and ecosystem services the and this is having profound consequences for both research vessels, ocean-going robots and commercial UK depends upon. How these services will evolve is regional weather patterns and marine ecosystems. ships that host or tow our instruments. Historically uncertain, and numerical models show a wide range Assessment of potential socio-economic impacts and we have made great use of research vessels and of future responses9. In some cases the link is clear (e.g. the knowledge base to maintain resilient natural measurements from commercial ships and satellite between anthropogenic emissions and ocean carbon resources requires an integrated coordinated effort systems to learn about changes in the marine storage). However, more complex linkages, such as Net primary production (top) and surface and detailed understanding of the natural variability environment. In CLASS our activities are also developing how changes in ocean acidification may feed through ocean velocity (bottom) from a high resolution of the basin-decadal scale ocean system (in other words, the use of autonomous vehicles and new sensors to to impacts on biodiversity in seafloor communities, global ocean–ice–ecosystem model. of the whole Atlantic Ocean over decades). increase the spatial and temporal coverage of the ocean, are harder to elucidate. CLASS will address four (© National Oceanography Centre)
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IMPACT CLASS outcomes are intended to generate impact REFERENCES in a wide stakeholder community, ranging from 1. Rhein, M., Rintoul, S.R., Aoki, S., Campos, E., Chambers, D., Feely, international policy-makers to the general public. We R.A., Gulev, S., Johnson, G.C., Josey, S.A., Kostianoy, A., Mauritzen, will provide input to the Intergovernmental Panel C., Roemmich, D., Talley, L.D. and Wang, F. 2013 Observations: on Climate Change (IPCC) and other global climate Ocean. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. assessment processes. We work with the UK Met Office Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report to communicate results directly to decision-makers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., Qin, D., Plattner, G.-K., Tignor, M., Allen, S.K., Boschung, J., Nauels, through UK Climate Projections, and CLASS is A., Xia, Y., Bex, V. and Midgley, P.M. (eds.)]. Cambridge, UK and supporting UK government decision-makers with New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. key scientific evidence and expertise. We provide data 2. McCarthy, G., Gleeson, E. and Walsh, S. (2015) The influence and advice in support of implementing the Marine of ocean variations on the climate of Ireland. Weather, 70 (8). Strategy Framework Directive, marine spatial planning doi:10.1002/wea.2543. (e.g. for marine protected areas), fisheries policy and 3. Sanders, R., Henson, S.A., Koski, M., De la Roche, C.L., Painter, S.C., environmental assessment for offshore operations (e.g. Poulton, A.J., Riley, J., Salihoglu, B., Visser, A., Yool, A., Bellerby, R. marine renewable energy). and Martin, A.P. (2014) The Biological Carbon Pump in the North Atlantic. Prog. Ocean, 129, pp.200–218. 4. Khatiwala, S., Primeau, F. and Hall, T. (2009) Reconstruction of CLASS is also providing advice and strategic planning the history of anthropogenic CO2 concentrations in the ocean. to international sustained programmes, and ensuring Nature, 462, pp.346–349. that all new observational and model data products are 5. Khatiwala, S., Tanhua, T., Fletcher, S.M., Gerber, M., Doney, S.C., easily available to the international community. The Graven, H.D., Gruber, N., McKinley, G.A., Murata, A., Rios, A.F. large user community for the novel technologies we and Sabine, C.L. (2013) Global ocean storage of anthropogenic 1 develop within CLASS will be: carbon. Biogeosci. , 10, pp.2169–2191. 6. Beaugrand, G., Edwards, M. and Legendre, L. (2010) Marine • UK and international scientists in marine and biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and carbon cycles. PNAS, 107, pp.10120–10124. 3 non-marine environmental sectors; 7. Galparsoro, I., Borja, A. and Uyarra, M.C. (2014) Mapping • The international environmental observing community ecosystem services provided by benthic habitats in the European and operators, industry and government departments North Atlantic Ocean. Front. Mar. Sci., doi.org/10.3389/ and agencies; fmars.2014.00023. • Industries that are manufacturing technologies or 8. Henson, S., Beaulieu, C. and Lampitt, R. (2016) Observing climate providing services; and change trends in ocean biogeochemistry: when and where. Glob. • Academic and industrial technology developers. Change Biol., doi:10.1111/gcb.13152. 9. Menary, M.B., Hodson, D.L.R., Robson, J., Sutton, R., Wood, R.A. OPPORTUNITIES FOR GETTING INVOLVED and Hunt, J.A. (2015) Exploring the impact of CMIP5 model biases on the simulation of North Atlantic decadal variability. Geophys. As well as delivering world-leading research, datasets, Res. Lett., doi:10.1002/2015GL064360. facilities and advice, CLASS activities will form the basis 10. MCCIP (2014) Marine Climate Change Research Priorities 2014 of new research projects. We encourage you to get in
Penny Holliday is a Principal Research Scientist at the National 2 4 Oceanography Centre, and the CLASS Science Coordinator. She is a seagoing physical oceanographer and has been researching Atlantic Ocean circulation and variability for over 20 years. 1: The aft deck of the RRS Discovery, full of oceanographic equipment, during an operation to lay a moored set of [email protected] instruments that were left in the deep ocean for two years. (© National Oceanography Centre). @CLASS_URI 2: Deploying an ocean-going robot (a glider) from a research ship. (© National Oceanography Centre). proj.noc.ac.uk/class 3: Deploying a continuous plankton recorder (CPR) from a commercial vessel. The CPR is towed behind the ship, filtering surface water onto silk to capture plankton and other small particles in the water. (© Marine Biological Association). 4: Decades of manual examination of the CPR silks under have provided an 87-year record of plankton abundance and community structure in the North Atlantic. (© Marine Biological Association)
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arth is a restless planet, constantly renewing would later call the mid-Atlantic Ridge, and started the its surface by one or another geological or study of submarine volcanoes. It was not until after Ehydrological process, with the added impacts of World War II that modern oceanography really started, human activities. Volcanism is one of the most dramatic in part because of the advent of sonar mapping (echo forms of natural activity, rapidly changing landscapes sounding), which made it much easier to determine and impacting local and global environmental conditions. seabed depth and the shapes of submarine landforms. Although we see many of Earth’s most active volcanoes This was when the extent of the global mid-ocean in places such as Hawaii, Iceland, Italy and Japan, by ridge system (now known to be more than 60,000 km far the greatest number of volcanoes on Earth is under long) was first discovered and the vast number (many the sea, most being under many kilometres of water. thousands) of mid-plate seamounts revealed. Nearly This great depth makes active submarine volcanoes all of the seamounts are volcanoes. difficult to discover and to observe. But humans are up for the challenge, and like space explorers going to With the advent of human-occupied vehicle (HOV) other worlds, oceanographers and marine geologists missions in the 1970s came the discovery of submarine have been devising evermore innovative ways to study hydrothermal systems, first as low-temperature submarine volcanoes, with dramatic improvements in vents on the Galapagos Spreading Centre, followed the last two decades or so. by high-temperature ‘black smoker’ vents on the northern East Pacific Rise a couple of years later. These Submarine volcanologists distinguish volcanoes discoveries opened the door to simultaneous geological, occurring in the deep ocean (deeper than 500–1000 m) ecological and geochemical studies, each needing the from those in the shallow seas, because the effects of development of specialised instruments and tools to hydrostatic pressure dramatically change the style of measure environmental parameters and take samples in volcanism with increasing depth and the tools needed ways that preserved their integrity. HOVs are not for the to study them. Shallow submarine volcanoes generally faint of heart. In addition to the limited driving speed erupt near land (e.g. Surtsey, off the coast of Iceland) and and bottom time (due to battery life and life-support often the eruption is visible at and above the sea surface. limitations), they are generally small (most outfitted Deep eruptions, on the other hand, cannot usually be for deep-sea exploration are 2 m spheres), cramped and detected from the surface and occur further from land, uncomfortable, with two or three people aboard and no requiring specialised tools to detect and respond to them. toilet. They bob up and down in the currents during This article focuses on deep eruptions, which are more deployment and recovery in ways that make many difficult to detect and study. passengers ill. Yet HOVs still provide the maximum manoeuvrability in an immersive situation, and are The methods submarine volcanologists use include in-situ by far the author’s preferred means of exploring and observations by human-occupied submersibles, robotic working on the deep seafloor. vehicles (some with direct human intervention and some running pre-programmed missions), photography, water The advent of multi-beam echo sounders for seabed sampling by surface ships, satellite observations, and mapping and hydroacoustic listening stations in the remote monitoring by hydrophone listening stations. 1980s gave scientists the ability to locate and map All of these are reliant on computers, modern methods active volcanoes in greater detail. Both of these types of navigation and geo-location (e.g. GPS) and basic of instrument had been in naval use for quite some geological, geophysical, ecological and/or environmental time before they were approved for civilian use, but knowhow. In addition, just like other environments, once accessible, the numbers of scientists studying submarine volcanoes are studied by scientists from submarine volcanoes and participating countries many different disciplines, from microbiologists and increased dramatically. The autonomous underwater vehicle, Sentry, macrofauna ecologists, to hydrothermal vent fluid being lowered into the ocean. chemists, mineralogists, geophysicists, structural Three more military technologies came to the scientific (© Kenneth Rubin) geologists, physical oceanographers and volcanologists. community in the 1990s and transformed the study of Exploring The range of studies includes active eruptions, submarine volcanoes: steady-state non-eruptive venting of fluids and ecosystem support, ore prospecting and geological hazards (e.g. • The global positioning system (GPS) of satellites; earthquakes, tsunami generation, landslides). • Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), which are operated Ken Rubin describes our changing by pilots from a surface ship to remotely control the HISTORY cameras, lights and sampling tools of a robotic vehicle submarine view of the seabed and its th The latter part of the 19 century brought many scientific on the seabed; and inhabitants, as we discover more and technological innovations. Two of these (the first • Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), which are true oceanographic expedition, on the HMS Challenger, pre-programmed autonomous robots that run subsea about underwater volcanoes. and the laying of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph mapping and sampling missions and then return to volcanoes cables) recovered volcanic rocks from a structure we the sea surface for collection.
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Mid-ocean Other deep ridge eruptions submarine eruptions 2017 W. Mata Axial Seamount 2015 Tafu - NELSC W. Mata 2013 Havre Axial Seamount 2011 W. Mata
Puipui - NELSC 2009
W. Mata 2007 NW Rota-1 9° 50 N EPR 2005
10° 45 N EPR 2003 Vailulu’u Seamount
Rosebud, GSC 2001
1999 Axial Seamount
1997 North Gorda Ridge Loihi Boomerang Seamount, (Southeast Indian Ridge) 1995
Flow site, Coaxial JDFR 1993 17° S EPR flow 9° 50 N EPR 1991 Key
Filled boxes correspond to eruptions with well-known dates and durations. p Ken inside the human-operated vehicle, Alvin. (© Kenneth Rubin) 1989 Open boxes are for eruptions with less certain timing.
In addition, the application of transponder navigation along with new forms of LED lighting systems made 1987 The wavy upper edge to the Northwest N. Cleft pillow mounds Rota-1 box indicates a potentially ongoing (networks of stationary sound beacons) allowed possible the documentation of seabed features for eruption. scientists to precisely locate and revisit small features repeat viewing, paving the way for the current on the seafloor, so that they could begin to make situation, which is that most seabed studies are 1985 time-series measurements and ecological transects. conducted by ROV. Live tele-presence (streaming Year video, commentary and vehicle navigation data) has By the 2000s, most of the primary technologies used democratised this type of science, to the extent that to study deep-sea volcanoes had been established, tele-presence-enabled operators such as the NOAA setting up a period of improvements in payload, Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, the Ocean Timeline of verified historical deep submarine eruption discoveries (observed in action, dated radiometrically and/ manoeuvrability, power consumption, and the Exploration Trust and Schmidt Ocean Institute (to or detected by repeat sonar surveys). See data sources and methods in Rubin, K.H., Soule, S.A., Chadwick, W.W., Jr, addition of highly specialised sampling tools. The name a few) can bring seabed science to many tens Fornari, D.J., Clague, D.A., Embley, R.W., Baker, E.T., Perfit, M.R., Caress, D.W. and Dziak, R.P. (2012) Volcanic eruptions transition from analogue to digital photography and of scientists and thousands of public participants in the deep sea. Oceanography, 25 (1) pp.142–157.
16 | environmental SCIENTIST | October 2018 October 2018 | environmental SCIENTIST | 17 CASEFEATURE STUDY FEATURE
the shallow ocean, but they cover much less ground such studies are conducted by visual observations and because of vehicle speed limitations to achieve the physical sample collection. Rocks are generally sampled best-quality data. Such methods have been used at with a manipulator or scoop. Sediments are sampled active volcanoes to identify new eruption deposits with long tubes capped on one end (pushcores) or special and then map their volume and aerial extents. For scoop bags designed to preserve the fine particles as well instance, in one of the author’s study areas in Tonga, as coarser ones. Most of the analyses of these specimens as many as 10 new eruption deposits over the last 15 happen on shore. years or so have been discovered by this method at just one small volcano known as West Mata, including one ERUPTIONS OBSERVED IN REAL TIME. detected in December 2017 that had occurred within Early in the era of in-situ volcano studies, several the preceding 18 months. Repeat decimetre-resolution submarine eruptions were detected either by chance AUV sonar mapping before and after the 2011 and or hydroacoustic monitoring. In most of these cases, 2015 eruptions allowed unprecedented views of lava repeat sonar mapping of the seabed revealed new rock distribution systems. deposits, which were subsequently studied along with the hydrothermal venting and resident ecosystems. PLUME MAPPING In the mid- to late 2000s, the holy grail of submarine Submarine volcano-hosted hydrothermal systems volcanology was reached, with the in-situ, real-time produce plumes of persistently venting fluids and observation of a glowing hot pyroclast ejection at particles over submarine volcanoes, and eruptions Northwest Rota-1 seamount (near the Marianas Islands) produce transient plumes that are larger and shorter and the eruption of pyroclasts and molten lava flowing lived. These are mapped using computer-controlled across the seabed at West Mata volcano in Tonga. To date towed packages of CTD (conductivity, temperature and these remain the only two deep submarine eruptions depth) and nephelometry (light scattering) on a sampling caught in the act. They have provided a wealth of rosette fitted with computer-triggered bottles to take observational data revealing how deep-sea eruptions water samples for analysis on the ship. occur, how volcanic materials are distributed into the landscape, and how eruptions perturb the local water BIOTRANSECTS column and seabed ecosystems. Just as on land, biologists will place markers at sites of interest and use repeat visits to study benthic community The quality of information that can be determined during composition, structure and stability in relation to and after submarine volcanic eruptions depends on possible changes in chemosynthetic energy sources from technology and human resources as well as weather diffuse- and focused-flow hydrothermal venting. They and sea state. The future of the discipline is focused on also deploy colonisation experiments (e.g. preformed whole-ocean monitoring, inexpensive and easy-to-deploy blocks of rock) to examine settling and recruitment of sensor networks, autonomous vehicles with greater microbes and macrofauna larvae. deployment duration and functional capabilities, automated response capabilities, and in-situ biological WATER SAMPLING and chemical analysis. To really learn about volcanic Tools to sample hot hydrothermal fluids and to preserve impacts in the deep ocean, such studies need to take © Kenneth Rubin their integrity include titanium samplers fitted with place in many locations around the globe. This can be a valves, a long sampling tube and devices to draw in challenge given the vastness of the world’s oceans. the hot fluids (up to 400 °C) activated by a submersible p Ken operating the remotely operated vehicle, SuBastian, from the control room. (© Kenneth Rubin) manipulator (robotic arm). Other similar devices are used to sample fluids for gas analysis, a key parameter Ken Rubin is a professor and former department chair of Earth MODERN METHODS capability with earthquake locations, seabed depth in volcanology. These devices maintain the sample at sciences at the University of Hawaii Manoa, with research The specialised methods for studying the deep-sea changes and water temperature measurements. in-situ pressure during the trip back to the sea surface interests in volcanology and sea-level change. In his 26 years in volcanic environment include all the standard and are chemically inert to keep fluid compositions Hawaii he has participated in 25 human-occupied submersible environmental tools for compositional analysis, The following methods or environments are given as intact. Some in-situ sampling devices can take multiple dives and 100 ROV dives in sites around the Pacific Ocean. He genomics, mapping and GIS. However, the deep sea examples of those that have specialised tools used to samples at once, and even carry out radioactive labelling holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University presents unique challenges in terms of sampling map and sample deep-sea volcanoes. experiments for in-situ metabolic or bioactivity analysis. of California, San Diego, and masters and doctoral degrees in technologies, in-situ sensors, real-time monitoring and oceanography and Earth sciences from Scripps Institution of rapid response for capturing transient signals after REPEAT SONAR MAPPING ROCK AND SEDIMENT SAMPLING Oceanography, UC San Diego. an eruption. Only a very few sites on the seafloor are Repeat mapping by surface ships and AUVs in a tightly Volcanic rocks hold many keys to unravelling volcanic @kenhrubin monitored in real time. The best monitored and observed constrained geospatial context allows detection of eruption styles and durations, as well as conditions in submarine volcano is called Axial; it sits on the Juan de seabed depth changes of tens of metres and decimetres, the magma leading up to an eruption, via their chemical Fuca ridge off the western coast of the USA. It erupted respectively. AUVs achieve higher depth resolution and textural make-up. Additionally, geological mapping in 1998, 2011 and 2015, and the last eruption occurred by using higher-frequency sonar and by flying closer of individual volcanic eruption deposits is critical for while the submarine observatory was coming online, to the seabed than surface ships, avoiding a lot of assessing the frequency and duration of individual demonstrating the utility of this real-time monitoring the sonar noise and sound velocity aberrations of eruptions at submarine volcanoes. Like geology on land,
18 | environmental SCIENTIST | October 2018 October 2018 | environmental SCIENTIST | 19 ANALYSIS ANALYSIS Improving air quality: How ports can help
Michael Bull outlines the sources of air pollution around ports, and the solutions being proposed and implemented.
t should be no surprise that a location such as a port, which concentrates shipping and road transport Iinto one area, should be considered a prime target for actions to improve air quality. This is reflected in the UK government’s latest draft Air Quality Strategy, in which one of the proposals is that major ports in the UK will be required to develop air quality strategies to reduce emissions from both shore-side and shipping. Though this would appear to be a sensible action that could achieve air quality improvements, when UK ports are examined in more detail, it is questionable just how big an impact they have on air quality.
© Peel Ports ANALYSIS ANALYSIS
3 NOx concentration is usually low, less than 1 µg/m . THE ROLE OF PORTS More locally to ports, the contribution of shipping Nevertheless, ports can also play a role and have taken to urban background pollutant concentrations can action to reduce their impact on air quality. They be higher, in some cases greater than 20 µg/m3. The can act as important influencers and facilitators for higher concentrations are only found close to where other parties involved, such as the ships’ operators. the ships berth or operate and usually the contribution This influence can help to drive environmental declines a few hundred metres from the activity. improvements in the marine environment.
Looking at the activities within the ports, such as Some ports, notably the Ports of London and the machinery used for loading and unloading or Southampton, have already published air quality moving goods and passengers within the ports, their strategies that detail the measures they are taking contribution is very small. A study was carried out and propose to implement in the future. These either recently to examine a proposed Clean Air Zone in include or propose green tariffs, which are cost Southampton, including a detailed emissions inventory reductions for vessels that meet certain standards. for the port and a detailed source apportionment In the case of the Port of London, the tariff will give for road links near to the port. Even very close to up to a 5 per cent discount if the vessel scores above
the port entrance, the contribution to local NOx 30 on the Environmental Ship Index (ESI; a way of
concentrations was less than 1 per cent of the total identifying ships that emit less NOx, sulphur dioxide
local NOx concentrations. and greenhouse gases than are currently required by the International Maritime Organization)3. Clearly the focus of air quality improvements near ports needs to concentrate on road traffic and to a Some ports are also examining the use of lesser extent, shipping emissions. lower-emission vessels (that use either fully electric
Cranes and vessels at the Port of Cardiff. (© Associated British Ports)
© Ralf Gosch | Fotolia
UK ports certainly involve the operation of vessels, assessed. Two of the example ports were located in vehicles and equipment, all of which emit pollutants cities and the other was in a relatively rural location. into the atmosphere. However, the ports themselves Generally the air quality trends in nitrogen dioxide have very little control over most of these sources. concentrations around ports were no different to They do not own or operate the ships visiting the those in other parts of the country near roads or in a ports, nor do they operate the road vehicles used to city centre. Concentrations have been relatively stable transport goods and passengers using the ports. In or showing a slight decline in the last five years. In some cases they are essentially only the landlords of nearly every location examined, the main source of the site, with the main port-related activities being NOx near ports was the local road network, but no carried out by their tenants. Most UK ports only port had detailed traffic information available to operate a limited amount of machinery used to load, allow the contribution from vehicles using the port unload and transport cargo around the docks, and a to be isolated, although clearly in some locations they small number of vessels such as tugs and pilot craft. would be responsible for the majority of the HGVs on the road links. AIR QUALITY AROUND PORTS The UK Major Ports Group (UKMPG) recognised that Emissions from the ships themselves were interesting. air quality was going to be an environmental issue In a national context, domestic shipping is responsible their members would have to take into account and for some 21 per cent of the total UK NOx emissions therefore commissioned and published (in September from transport. This is a significant contribution, but 2018) a study examining air quality around ports in terms of local air quality, these emissions are often that also assessed mitigation measures that could released in locations where they have little impact be applied within each port’s air quality strategy1. on pollutant concentrations. The Pollution Climate In this study, the recent trends in air quality around Mapping (PCM) modelling carried out on behalf of the three example ports were examined and, where data Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was available, the contribution of the shipping and (Defra)2 does give some useful information. The ports’ activities to local pollutant concentrations was contribution of shipping to the regional background
22 | environmental SCIENTIST | October 2018 October 2018 | environmental SCIENTIST | 23 ANALYSIS ANALYSIS
consequently result in reductions in local emissions at a national or international level by government and local air quality improvements. This is the use of agreement. The MARPOL4 convention resulted in rail to transport freight. Many ports have good rail the establishment of Emission Control Areas (ECAs) connections and already use rail, while others are which included parts of the UK. This convention was expanding their facilities. At one of the study ports, mainly aimed at reducing sulphur dioxide emissions
nearly 40 per cent of the freight in containers was but also covers other pollutants such as NOx. ECAs moved by rail in recent years. The use of rail is a choice have been very successful in reducing sulphur dioxide made by customers but has been supported in recent concentrations at some UK ports such as Dover, where years by government freight subsidies. Unfortunately, an AQMA was revoked. these have begun to drop and the impact of these reductions can be clearly seen, with the proportion The full report prepared on behalf of the UKMPG of freight moved at the study port reducing from 39 examines several other mitigation measures and per cent to 32 per cent in the last two years – in this provides a toolkit for UK ports to assist them in case this was the equivalent of nearly 100,000 HGV developing their air quality strategies. In recent years, movements a year. Given that the greatest need to many UK ports have themselves been examining ways reduce pollutant concentrations is over the next two to reduce their air quality impacts, and the proposed to three years, an increase in the support grant would requirements in the draft Air Quality Strategy will be a simple measure that could result in a significant no doubt accelerate these initiatives. reduction in emissions.
The second measure that has received a lot of attention Michael Bull is a Director of Arup’s Environmental Consulting is the use of shore-side power. When vessels are at business, and has over 30 years of experience in air quality berth in a port, they source power from auxiliary assessment, mainly examining the impacts of transport generators on board ship. For some vessels these infrastructure. He was the Project Director for the work generators are sizeable: a cruise liner’s auxiliary carried out for UKMPG and one of the principal authors of the generator can typically generate around 12–14 MW research report and Vice Chair of the IAQM. of power. Where several vessels are berthed, the power generation could be over 50 MW. This level of generation, usually using oil as a fuel, can be seen as a significant source of pollutants and consequently REFERENCES shore-side power (also called ‘cold ironing’) is often 1. Ove Arup and Partners Ltd (2018) UK Major Ports Group proposed. The berthed vessels receive power from (UKMPG) Air Quality Study Research Report. the grid instead of generating it themselves, thus 2. Defra, UK Air Information Resource. Air modelling reducing local emissions. This measure clearly for Defra.
Managing vehicle movements at ports is important to or hybrid technology). Although this is at a small its air quality) was revoked as a result of measures ensure that they are not delayed, and many ports use scale at present, they act as important examples of largely taken by the local port operator. vehicle booking systems to manage their vehicle arrivals. what can be achieved and assist in driving forward Although air quality improvements are not necessarily technological improvements for the whole industry. MITIGATION MEASURES the primary purpose, reducing queuing and idling In terms of port operations, it is often difficult to means emissions reductions are a secondary benefit. Other ports have already taken action to reduce their identify any measure that would have a significant impact as a result of the air quality management impact without making major changes to the activity Actions to improve air quality around ports can, in process being carried out by local authorities. In one or reducing it. However, for several UK ports, there some cases, have wider air quality improvements, case at Felixstowe, an Air Quality Management Area is one such measure that can significantly reduce the particularly those that relate to reducing emissions (AQMA; where the area is put on notice to improve numbers of vehicles travelling to and from the site, and from ships themselves. Such actions are largely applied
24 | environmental SCIENTIST | October 2018 October 2018 | environmental SCIENTIST | 25 CASEFEATURE STUDY FEATURE
The cetaceans of the British Isles and a changing marine environment
he waters around the British Isles hold many Chiara Giulia Bertulli and Peter important sites for whales, dolphins and Evans describe ongoing shifts in Tporpoises (collectively called ‘cetaceans’) to feed, give birth or raise their young. In total, 29 abundance and distribution. species have been recorded, almost one-third of the 90 species found worldwide, which highlights how rich our waters are for these magnificent and treasured animals. Harbour porpoises are the most common and widespread – they can be spotted almost anywhere around the coast.
© Shaiith | Dreamstime CASEFEATURE STUDY FEATURE
Bottlenose dolphins are seen almost daily from places CHANGING DISTRIBUTIONS and northern North Sea, around Orkney and across Conservation (SACs; the Southern Cardigan Bay SAC such as New Quay on the Welsh coast and Chanonry The reason why whales, dolphins and porpoises occur to north-west Scotland. In previous decades, Atlantic and the Pen Llyn a’r Sarnau SAC) for bottlenose dolphins Point in the Moray Firth, and less often from several in certain areas is because our oceans are not uniform, white-sided dolphins were frequently seen west of as they are important other locations. White-beaked dolphins are sighted off but a mosaic of Ireland. Nowadays, the British Isles and Ireland represent mating and calving the coast of north-east England, in the the southernmost edge of their range, with the species grounds for this North Sea east of Scotland and appearing to be shifting northwards. species. They also around the northern Hebrides, contain important and there is a small However, some unexpected changes in the opposite feeding areas for the dolphins population in Lyme direction have also been observed. A bowhead – observations of live and stranded individuals Bay in southern different physical whale, a species largely confined to the Arctic, was provide evidence that they eat a wide range of fish and England. And and oceanographic sighted off the Isles of Scilly in February 2015, more crustaceans. there is no conditions which can be than 3,000 kilometres from its normal range. The same reason to either beneficial or detrimental species (possibly the same individual) was re-sighted In the long term, there are going to be more warm travel as to the growth and production of a year later close to shore at Marazion near Penzance, water species expanding their distribution further phytoplankton and zooplankton. These, in Cornwall, and since then has been seen north and therefore, an increase in the number of far as Norway or often tiny, forms of life are the basis of the off Northern Ireland, species sighted. However, we might lose species such Iceland to see orcas, minkes or cetacean food web, and therefore areas of high Belgium and France. as the Atlantic white-sided dolphin and maybe the humpback whales, as all three occur plankton productivity tend to attract cetaceans. One possible white-beaked dolphin. All the tropical and warm around mainland Scotland, the Western When combined with favourable conditions for temperate species entering the seas around the British Isles, Orkney and Shetland, particularly reproduction (such as shallow, sheltered waters with Isles are likely to face a much wider range of human in the spring and summer months. reliable food resources but lacking predators), these pressures along the industrialised coastlines of factors more than any others influence cetacean spatial northern Europe, and the effect of these on cetaceans COLLECTING DATA and temporal patterns of distribution. explanation is that ice melt is causing the ice will need to be closely monitored. Gathering information about population sizes, to fragment, allowing icebergs and pack ice (with which movements and distributions of cetaceans is With recent records of increased sea temperatures in these species closely associate) to drift south from the challenging: they travel long distances and spend most the waters around the British Isles, alterations in the Arctic. The welcome increase in the size of the West of their time underwater, with only brief appearances distribution and abundance of many species of marine Greenland population of bowhead whales may also be Chiara Giulia Bertulli is the Sightings Officer at Sea Watch at the surface to breathe. However, to track trends and life have been a contributory factor. The other arctic species sighted Foundation. She holds a PhD in marine biology from the detect changes it is vital to gather data about presence, in the waters around the British Isles in recent years University of Iceland. Before joining Sea Watch she spent numbers, behaviour and geographical position. is the beluga (also called the white whale). Belugas eight years leading a citizen science project focusing on the The founders of the Sea Watch Foundation, were seen on multiple occasions in 2015 off the coast of conservation, demography, social structure and health status of a national charity dedicated to marine eastern England and Northern Ireland, and the one in minke whales and white-beaked dolphins in Iceland. research, conservation and education, the Thames Estuary in 2018 represents one of the most established a nationwide citizen southerly records of the species in Europe. Peter Evans established Sea Watch Foundation (formerly the science project in the 1970s Cetacean Group of the Mammal Society) in 1991 and is the by creating a network of MULTIPLE THREATS charity’s Director. He has worked on cetacean research for 40 volunteer observers observed. But the threats to cetaceans do not relate only to rising years and oversees the national cetacean monitoring scheme who report the In the last 10 years, sea temperatures as a result of global climate change: of the British Isles. He is Honorary Senior Lecturer at the details of cetacean for example, an increase they face many other threats. Harbour porpoises suffer School of Ocean Sciences, University of Bangor, and his field sightings from in the records of warm-water entanglement in bottom set gillnets, common dolphins research concentrates on the all around the species such as striped dolphins get caught in pelagic trawls; high levels of marine ecology, behaviour British Isles; and Cuvier’s beaked whales have pollutants such as PCBs can disrupt reproduction and conservation their input been recorded. We also see warm-water and affect the immune systems of all marine biology of cetaceans has been species extending their ranges further north: mammals; noise from a range of human in the waters around vital in improving short-beaked common dolphins and Risso’s dolphins, activities can disturb whales from their the British Isles. our knowledge of for example, are now frequently seen in the northern feeding grounds; and overfishing the health of the marine North Sea. And new warm-water species have been can leave porpoises dolphins short environment and its inhabitants. added to the British Isles’ cetacean fauna: examples of food and put them under The Sea Watch Foundation also organises include the dwarf sperm whale, a species that normally threat of starvation. the National Whale and Dolphin Watch, occurs in tropical and temperate waters, mainly off the an annual nine-day event during which coast of west Africa. Establishing marine protected areas (MPAs) is one thousands of volunteers all around the way to safeguard cetaceans from a range of Cetaceans in order as they appear: British Isles collect sightings of cetaceans. The At the same time, the more northern species may be threats. The great advantage of designating such areas top left, humpback whale; 2018 event yielded an unprecedented variety shifting their range northwards away from the British is that they successfully protect not only that particular bottom left, bowhead whale; of cetaceans, possibly because of the stable high Isles as a result of rising sea temperatures – white-beaked cetacean species but many other species occupying top right, dwarf sperm whale; temperatures, which may well have created ideal dolphins have become scarcer in the southernmost North the same environment. The Sea Watch Foundation middle right, bottlenose dolphin; and conditions for plankton fronts to develop, attracting Sea, probably in response to changing distributions provided the basic information that led to two parts bottom right, Cuvier’s beaked whale. shoals of fish and in turn whales and dolphins. of their prey, and are now mainly seen in the central of Cardigan Bay being designated as Special Areas of (© Lexie Mac)
28 | environmental SCIENTIST | October 2018 October 2018 | environmental SCIENTIST | 29 New members and re-grades
is for those individuals who have substantial academic is for individuals beginning their environmental career or and work experience within environmental science. those working on the periphery of environmental science.
Itunuoluwa Allison – Environmental Consultant Anna Kalasinska – Data Quality & Radiation Protection Supervisor Sean Barrett – Geotechnical Engineer David Hastings – Environmental Consultant Rowena Bailey – Scientific Officer Benjamin Lewis – Environmental Monitoring Advisor Joseph Beddard – Graduate Air Quality Consultant Ivan Kelly – Graduate Trevor Bamber – UK SHE, Q/IMS Manager Roisin Lindsay – Principal Consultant Grace Biddle – Graduate Mark Lane – Graduate Consultant Marianne Brett – Environmental Scientist Stuart McAleese – Managing Partner Katharina Cameron – Graduate Hugh Leekam – Graduate Luke Bridges – Managing Director Christopher McCartney – Senior Geoenvironmental Consultant Thomas Clarke – Geoenvironmental Consultant Kirsten Leggatt – Graduate Carbon & Sustainability Consultant Christopher Brodie – Product Manager Sarah Manchester – Senior Ecologist Howard Cross – Aquatic Ecologist Sarah Low Wanlin – HSE & Sustainability Advisor David Broomfield – Associate Director Ellis Marshall-Padkin – Air Quality Consultant Dominic Davey – Graduate Clare Lydon – Graduate Callum Burns – Geo-Environmental Consultant Neil Martin – Senior Environmental Health Officer Yohlanda Day – Graduate Guy Marsden – Environmentalist Bryan Cassidy – Environmental Consultant George Onuoha – Regulatory Services Officer Maddalena De Lorenzo – Air Quality Consultant Assistant Abigail Pepler – Graduate Researcher John Cleland – Environmental Manager Jo Osmond – Environmental Consultant Cat Dixon – Environmental Consultant Emilia Pruszkowski – Environmental Consultant: Air Quality Gail Crocker – Waste Water Treatment Principal Scientist Cara Peers-Smallwood – Environmental Consultant Ian Dunkley – Geo-environmental Engineer Taraka Rhodes – Graduate Timothy Crowe – Geo-Environmental Consultant Julia Reynolds – Project Officer: Team Leader, Contaminated Land Dominic Ellerton – Graduate Jessica Rimington-Cross – Graduate Peter George – Managing Director Marc Ross – Contaminated Land Manager Rachel Ellis – Graduate Connor Rusby – Assistant Air Quality Consultant Simon Grubb – Senior Consultant Paul Sanderson – Environmental Scientist: Air Quality Cameron Farr – Geotechnical Testing Engineer George Taylor – Graduate Christopher Hepworth – Associate Director Ramon Scoble – Senior Hydrogeologist Laura Fleming – Environmental Coordinator Victoria Thomson – Analyst Consultant Christina Higgins – Senior Air Quality Consultant Andrew Scott – Associate Matthew Greenwood – Environmental Consultant Annie Trevis – Graduate Air Quality Consultant Robert Horseman – Senior Geo-Environmental Consultant Robin Spalding – Environmental Monitoring Officer Kathryn Hampton – Graduate Steven Vallance – Assistant Environmental Engineer Jack Hunter – Senior Geo-environmental Engineer Katherine Stanger – Senior Air Quality Consultant Elleanor Harris – Environmental Steward Lee Weir – Security Officer Christine Irvine – Renewables & Sustainability Project Officer Andrew Swinbourne – Engineering Geologist Fiona Hartley – Consultant Daniel Wicker – Assistant Environmental Consultant Claire Jones – Environmental Consultant
is for individuals with an interest in environmental issues but who don’t work in the field, or for students on non-accredited programmes.
Steve Barnes – Business Development Manager Daniel Moore – Audio Engineer Sophia Dowell – Student Chloe Munro – Student Thomas Fynn – Regulatory Scientist Leeza Pickering – Student Rebecca Hopper – Trainee Air Quality Technician
Whatever stage of your career you are If your career has progressed recently it could be If you have been building your career for four To find out more about at, the IES has membership services time for a re-grade to reflect your success. years or more, now could be the right time to that will help you gain recognition become Chartered. membership or chartership, Re-grading can take place at any time and progress to the next level. get in touch. of the year. Re-grading from Associate Chartered status is a benchmark of professionalism Members come from all areas of the to Full Member means that you can apply for and achieving this will see you join the ranks of the [email protected] environmental sector, wherever their Chartership. There’s never been a better time best environmental scientists in the sector. The IES work is underpinned by science. Time for a +44 (0)20 7601 1920 Not a member? to take the next step in your career. Eligible for awards two Charterships: Chartered Scientist Contact Us re-grade? chartership? and Chartered Environmentalist. We also offer the www.the-ies.org REnvTech register. @IES_UK ANALYSIS ANALYSIS
Focus on the coast
Natasha Bradshaw outlines the his article highlights the potential of collaborative governance mechanisms increasing need for integrated Tand participatory approaches to involve management of the coast to keep coastal communities in decision-making and help to promote coastal and ocean stewardship. up with the emerging interest in and pressures on our oceans.
© sonjanovak | Fotolia ANALYSIS ANALYSIS
COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS AND COASTAL COMMUNITIES vulnerable to flooding and erosion. Over-exploitation Coastal habitats, the transition zones between land and of coastal land squeezes habitats such as mangrove, sea, are among the most productive ecosystems in the salt marsh and mud flats, undermining their ability to world – they produce disproportionately more services provide a natural buffer to protect land, property and relating to human wellbeing than most other systems. These the natural resources upon which coastal communities ecosystem services include food, shoreline protection, water rely. The loss of beaches and coastal habitats can put quality maintenance, waste treatment, tourism, social and high-value coastal property and transport infrastructure cultural benefits1. Coastal economies also depend upon at risk, leading to escalating costs of artificial coastal coastal habitats to provide spawning ground for fish, protection schemes such as concrete walls, rock armour sand for beach tourism and construction and deep-water and beach replenishment. harbours for ports and navigation, amongst other uses. Over one-third of the world’s population live in coastal areas, The demise of small-scale inshore fishing in favour which are defined by the United Nations Environment of larger commercial-scale fishing in many parts of Programme as inland from the coastline to a maximum of the world is another example of how recent changes 100 km or 50 m elevation, whichever is closer to the sea2. have made coastal communities more vulnerable in socio-economic terms. In future we are likely to see As population density and economic activity in coastal increasing competition for space from the aquaculture zones increase, pressures on coastal ecosystems increase: and renewable industry sectors. The potential for multiple users place multiple demands on coastal harnessing tidal energy and other renewables from the ecosystems, so the competition for natural resources is sea could be both an opportunity and a risk to coastal often higher than inland or at sea, meaning that coastal communities – a risk that the character and traditional habitats have become highly threatened. uses of the coast are compromised by large-scale development, but an opportunity for socio-economic A wide range of industries benefit from the use of land near revival, particularly in areas where social deprivation ports and harbours, with accessible transport infrastructure has become an increasing challenge. in low-lying coastal areas. The agricultural sector benefits from nutrient-rich farmland near the mouth of rivers and If competition for resources is not governed or managed estuaries. Individual and commercial interests in high-value well, the quality of the environment for people and land and property contrast with the open-access demands wildlife deteriorates and along with it, the value of the of beach users and the benefits of coastal recreation to a ecosystem services. wide population. Activities such as beach tourism, hotel development, sand extraction and port construction risk DECISION-MAKING FOR COASTAL ZONES damaging the quality and sustainability of the resources Where land meets sea, there is no obvious management people value at the coast. The demands of communities, unit or ecosystem boundary as there may be for a © Zastavkin | Dreamstime.com recreational users, fisheries, ports and aggregate industry mountain range, a woodland or a river watershed. as well as energy and other commercial users need to be The coastal ecosystem is rarely seen as a whole, with carefully managed to avoid conflict. Strong user-groups monitoring and compliance standards typically based representing these interests are often formed with sailing on specific indicators (e.g. water quality, fish catches, LEGAL & POLICY APPROACHES TO COASTAL MANAGEMENT for coastal ecosystems and legal arrangements to deal clubs, angling clubs, conservation groups, hoteliers and or habitats and species occurrence). Shoreline units are A focus on planning and management of the coast with property rights, arbitrate in disputes and enforce residents needing a say in decision-making. sometimes identified using ‘sediment cells’ to inform has emerged in recent decades through legislation, legislation10. Advice was provided on how countries coastal protection schemes but the need for integrated policy and practice. Early European Community action could provide governance arrangements to encourage CHANGES TO COASTAL COMMUNITIES management goes beyond this. programmes drew special attention to coastal areas an integrated approach. Local coastal communities are likely to experience leading to a European Coastal Charter in 1981, which increasing pressure to meet national or regional Currently, decision-making is often undertaken underscored the need for integrated planning of coastal Legislation for coastal zones continues to be pursued in development objectives for nuclear power stations, offshore on a project or case-by-case basis, with limited areas7. During the 1990s, the European Commission some countries. South Africa introduced an Integrated wind farms and aquaculture to redress losses to fish stocks. application of strategic planning or cumulative recommended the implementation of integrated coastal Coastal Zone Management Act (2009). In Europe, Many countries are now progressing marine plans3 which effects assessment5 to take account of the health of zone management (ICZM) in Europe8. Mediterranean countries are pursuing the ICZM will lead to the allocation of space to maritime industries, the ecosystem. The assessment of environmental Protocol (2010) and countries such as France continue many of which will require coastal access land. Coastal impacts from development decisions is often limited In 1992 the UN Earth Summit called on coastal states to to pursue an active coastal policy11. To help achieve tourism, water sports and the recreational health benefits to narrow timescales for public consultation, rather set up ICZM strategies9. The Organisation for Economic sustainable management, a voluntary framework for of being by the sea have been recognised, but development than ensuring full engagement across sectoral interest Co-operation and Development (OECD) adopted a ICZM emerged in countries such as the UK12. However, proposals can often overlook the need to factor these into groups and the engagement of coastal communities recommendation on ICZM which stated that ‘the coastal implementation is proving challenging with or without decision-making. Socio-economic activities such as beach with local knowledge. Decision-making can be also zone … is under severe and increasing pressure from framework legislation. tourism have mushroomed in recent decades. However, be slow and lack transparency. With new development rapid urbanisation, pollution, tourism development sand mining and large-scale aggregate dredging may opportunities emerging (such as renewable energy and and continued development in hazard prone areas. Global progress is being made towards marine planning3 threaten the very land on which coastal communities rely4. aquaculture) there is a need to increase accountability Resource allocation conflicts are increasing’. It advocated and the designation of marine protected areas (MPAs), Due to climate change, the increased risk of storminess to stakeholders and update approaches to resource the need for coastal zone legislation to define roles with mixed experiences of how the coast and coastal and sea-level rise makes coastal communities increasingly management to emphasise stewardship6. and responsibilities, meet environmental objectives communities are engaged in the planning process, but
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the need to acknowledge the land–sea connection is proper engagement with coastal communities or a lack of and NGOs, who can represent the environment to give REFERENCES recognised13. The European Commission is making political will to ensure open and transparent decisions. it better legal standing18. Yet we are still experiencing 1. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) (2006) Marine attempts to promote integration between terrestrial significant losses to the coastal environment through and Coastal Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing: A Synthesis and marine planning through Article 7 of the EU MSP Statutory obligations towards the sustainable overfishing and illegal fishing, land-use change and Report Based on the Findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Directive (2014)14 which requires that ‘in order to take management of coastal resources may be limited habitat loss, invasive species, eutrophication from Assessment. UNEP. into account land–sea interactions … Member States in the extent to which they encourage stewardship pollution and the associated health impacts. Despite the 2. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) (2006) The may use other formal or informal processes, such as through standard consultation mechanisms. work of NGOs and voluntary initiatives highlighting the value of coastal ecosystems.
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Louise Heaps discusses the s land-based resources are increasingly exhausted, the world is looking to the ocean for conditions needed for achieving new opportunities to support economic growth. Bringing oceans AHuge advances in technology are now enabling us to a sustainable blue economy. explore and potentially plunder valuable mineral deposits even in the deepest parts of the ocean floor. According to the OECD1, by 2030 the ocean economy, which is taken to include all economic sectors with a direct or indirect back from link to the ocean, is projected to double, outperforming the growth of the global economy as a whole in terms the brink of added value and employment. With the total value
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The World Economic Forum now ranks the following As the primary user of the blue economy, the private as its top risks over the next 10 years4: sector is critical to turning this vision into reality. Indeed, global businesses are becoming increasingly • extreme weather; aware of the long-term risks of continuing with • failure to adapt to climate change; and business as usual, not least in terms of the potential • ecosystems collapse. regulatory, market and physical risks resulting from unsustainable ocean activities9. By the same token, Fish stocks in some tropical areas are predicted to they are awakening to the benefits of sustainability, decline by an estimated 40–60 per cent due to climate both in terms of improved investment prospects and change alone5, with significant implications for the food the long-term viability of their companies10. security and livelihoods of many millions of people in developing coastal states. The estimated USD$83 billion Incentives and capital urgently need to be directed losses in annual global revenue caused by overfishing6 to a sustainable blue economy vision, and the finance is also leading to a substantial leakage of value out of and investment sector are at the centre of driving this the ocean economy. Put simply, the current level of transition. But in an environment that already carries unsustainable economic activity in the ocean is already significant business risk as a result of the complexity undermining ocean health and its ability to continue and inconsistency of the regulatory environment, to deliver essential ecosystem services, with long-term information and data challenges, and the cumulative consequences for all of us. nature of impacts, there is limited available guidance on how to act. Whilst SDG14 offers a clear framework and This of course runs counter to the ambitions of the a significant opportunity to address some of the biggest Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular threats facing our oceans today, there is an urgent need the ocean goal (SDG14), agreed in September 20157, for industry-specific targets, measures and guidelines, which envisage ‘a world in which poverty is eradicated, better integrated regulation and stronger incentives. economies are transformed and development takes place ????? within planetary boundaries’4. Without a framework to guide sustainable ocean-related investment and development policy, investors could Unsustainable investment lies at the heart of this see significant margin-diluting risks and a portfolio of degradation, facilitating levels of development that stranded assets. To address this, a new set of voluntary © Jörgen Freund | WWF exceed the carrying capacity of our ocean and its sustainable blue economy finance principles specific to the ecosystems. Yet, if the ocean’s natural capital was sustainable blue economy have been developed by WWF, properly valued and mainstream finance was redirected the European Commission (EC), the European Investment towards its restoration, significant opportunities could Bank (EIB) and the World Resources Institute (WRI) to act of the ocean economy estimated to be US$24 trillion, Coral reefs are a case in point. In only 30 years, the be realised. Certainly, the World Bank6 estimates that the as a framework for sustainable mainstream investment providing annual benefits of at least US$2.5 trillion Earth has lost around half of its reefs due to a range global marine fish harvest could be 13 per cent higher and development policy decisions, underpinning the to our global economy2, unprecedented development of pressures. On current climate-change trajectories, if fisheries were managed more sustainably, and there delivery of the SDGs. is expected in coastal tourism, infrastructure, energy, scientists project that up to 90 per cent of the planet’s is increasing evidence that up-front investments in biotechnology, transport and food production. coral reefs are likely to suffer bleaching and disappear fisheries recovery can generate substantial social and by mid-century3. While they occupy less than 0.1 per cent economic returns over time8. “Fish stocks in some tropical However, over-exploitation and the growing threats of the marine environment, coral reefs provide habitat areas are predicted to decline facing ocean ecosystems means that many of the for at least 25 per cent of all marine species. Given that The question is: do we have the right combination of indicators of ocean health are now trending in the wrong reefs also support essential food supplies and provide responsible governance, tools, innovation, resources and by an estimated 40–60 per cent direction. The cumulative impacts of unsustainable jobs and coastal protection to hundreds of millions political will to achieve the healthy, diverse, productive 5 fishing, poorly planned coastal development, excessive of people, such losses would have serious social and and resilient marine ecosystems required to realise the due to climate change alone” land-based urban and agricultural pollution as well as economic ramifications. substantial benefits that the ocean offers? climate change are all degrading the oceans’ natural capital and rapidly eroding the resource base upon which THE RISKS OF BUSINESS AS USUAL A FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT These principles build on existing frameworks for healthy ocean ecosystems, communities and indeed our Despite these stark facts, the argument for the intrinsic The term ‘sustainable blue economy’ is slowly being this sector, including the Equator Principles11 and the economic growth expectations depend. value of our ocean – not to mention its vital life-support adopted into global policy parlance, taken to mean Principles for Responsible Investment12, as well as WWF’s functions in terms of providing half of the oxygen the sustainable use of the ocean and its resources sustainable blue economy principles13. They aim to ensure we breathe, regulating our climate and buffering the for economic development without compromising that ocean-related investment delivers long-term value “As the primary user of the blue effects of climate change – has not sufficiently motivated its integrity and health. Sustainable blue economy without having a negative impact on marine ecosystems, economy, the private sector is decision-makers to act. However, the social, economic approaches aim to: on efforts to reduce carbon emissions, or on ocean-based and risk-reduction case for restoring and protecting businesses of all sizes and the livelihoods of people who critical to turning this vision ocean health is beginning to resonate with many • build ocean resilience; depend on them. They were presented at the Our Ocean governments and business leaders alike. • maintain ecosystem integrity; and conference in Bali in October 2018, with an ambition of into reality” • safeguard the livelihoods of those who depend achieving widespread adoption by the finance, investment on living oceans. and insurance sectors.
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GETTING THE ENABLING CONDITIONS RIGHT to mobilise private capital flows to emerging and resources. Nevertheless, many of these approaches are At larger scales, marine spatial planning (MSP) is an The true potential of the blue economy can only frontier markets’14. Tailored insurance products can still untested and there is an urgent need to further emerging ocean governance tool fundamental to the be realised if our ocean’s health is secured. We also improve the risk profile of ocean-based projects, explore, pilot and advocate them. delivery of the growth ambitions of many coastal states. must therefore invest in restoring, protecting and thereby strengthening investor confidence. MSP provides a tool for looking holistically across sustainably managing ocean assets. Whilst there is Reducing risk to secure investor confidence in sustainable seascapes as well as facilitating the consideration of no shortage of investment capital globally, the lack of Several innovative financing mechanisms are also blue economy projects will also require governments competing interests and the cumulative impact of all high quality, scalable and investable projects, coupled now starting to emerge, creating new forms of to substantially strengthen regulation and policies the activities taking place in that area. In doing so, it with an often-weak governance environment and data finance for development opportunities that fulfil that build resilience and support the sustainable aims to reduce conflict and help ensure that there is a limitations on which to base investment decisions and the ambitions of a sustainable blue economy. These management and protection of natural capital. Emerging space for nature, so that marine ecosystem resilience measure impact14 present real challenges. Certainly, include mobilising domestic sources of income through and well-established governance tools, regulations and is not compromised and the replenishment of natural the lack of debt or working capital to finance fisheries payment for ecosystem services (PES) models, or approaches, if implemented effectively, could achieve this resources is supported. MSP is already underway recovery at the pace and scale required is considered addressing sovereign debt through debt-for-nature and improve long-term opportunities for growth. Marine at scale in many countries, including the UK, and to be a significant obstacle to achieving sustainability swaps. Blue carbon is also gaining traction and is protected areas (MPAs), for example, aim to protect fragile requires multi-sector collaboration and concerted in this sector15. leading to increased interest in mangrove and seagrass and representative habitats and species so that marine life action in ways that have not been attempted before. rehabilitation. In addition, a handful of emerging is able to breed and mature, allowing the system to recover If our ambitions for sustainable development in our There is a need to create an enabling environment that ocean private equity investment funds are also now and become more resilient to human pressures. Not only oceans are to be realised, the effective application reduces the inherent risks associated with operating in looking to generate financial returns, including Althelia have MPAs been shown to increase fish biomass17, they and investment into tools such as MSP is essential. the ocean environment. The public and private sectors Ecosphere’s Sustainable Ocean Fund launched in early make economic sense if effectively managed, potentially have a critical role in achieving this by, for example, 2016. The concept of blue bonds is also emerging, with creating billions of dollars of benefits18. Yet, despite a OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE FUTURE committing up-front investments and guarantees to the development of the Seychelles Blue Bond16 which, global agreement to protect 10 per cent of our oceans by Achieving a sustainable blue economy is fundamentally address unfavourable governance conditions through during the 2018 Our Ocean conference, the Seychelles 2020, only about 7 per cent of our oceans are currently about systemic change. This will require substantial the use of blended finance, defined as ‘the strategic Government announced to support sustainable under some form of protection; and significantly less is shifts in political will, new forms of investment and use of development finance and philanthropic funds development and management of the Seychelle’s marine under effective management19. strong engagement with private sector. Getting the
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political traction and investment needed is challenging, but at the first UN Oceans Conference held in New REFERENCES York in June 2017 there was a real optimism for a 1. OECD (2016) The Ocean Economy in 2030. OECD Publishing, sustainable approach to the blue economy; many Paris.
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© Surfers Against Sewage
Surfers against plastic
Paddy Fowler speaks to Hugo Hugo Tagholm is currently the chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage, having previously worked with the Tagholm about the crisis of plastic organisation as an activist, regional rep and trustee. pollution in the oceans and on He is also, of course, a surfer. beaches worldwide. We spoke to Hugo about his experiences in working to stem the flow of plastic that is being added to our environment and in raising awareness of the problems it causes.
Could you give a brief history of Surfers Against Sewage and how you became involved in the plastic pollution issue? Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) was started as a movement and non-governmental organisation (NGO) back in 1990 and, as the name suggests, it was set up by surfers on the single issue of sewage. The focus then was particularly
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on marine sewage disposal, which was causing chronic So we have been involved in plastic for a long time and What is the next step in the UK towards preventing plastic “The producers are putting issues of water quality on the beaches around the UK. in a number of ways. The abiding and ever-enduring waste entering our oceans and what infrastructure changes The focus on water quality in the first decade was characteristic of the organisation is that we represent do you see in the next 5–10 years? this plastic in the hands of the in conjunction with sweeping new environmental perhaps the most authentic voice of the oceans in the UK Infrastructure will play a big part in it, but I think there legislation coming in from Europe: the Water Framework in terms of the charity sector. We represent people who isn’t a silver bullet in all of this, as it isn’t one single public, and without the right Directive, the Bathing Water Directive and many more. live and breathe the ocean, who have a really passionate issue that needs solving. The current situation is the systems in place those pieces The game changer was the Urban Waste Water Treatment connection with the ocean and often a daily physical cumulative effect of plastic pollution over a number of Directive, which put the responsibility onto the water connection. We amplify their voice through all of the years from a number of sources. One product taken in of plastic are effectively companies, to make them stop pumping out sewage work we do, from the beachfront to the front benches isolation can be made to seem very basic and dealt with on a day-to-day basis all along the coastline of the UK. of parliament. simply, but the collective and compounded effect of lots weaponised” of different products that are difficult to recycle and Personally, as a supporter and member, I have been There is always a balance between consumer responsibility, manage means that we are in a plastic pollution crisis. So But the government needs to play a big role in this. involved since the very early days when I met some of producer responsibility and government regulation. Have we definitely need new systems, and the deposit return It needs to put the right legislation in place to push the founding members in 1991. After spending time we currently got the balance right? scheme, for example, requires national infrastructure to businesses to invest in the right areas. We are seeing working with Sarah Brown at her charity, Theirworld, Firstly, I would hesitate to call it a balance. I would look get bar coding on cans and bottles to be able to return some great leadership in terms of innovations from and in a number of other charities, I took over as chief at it more as a set of links between the different actors. them. We need the machines to be built and to know some companies at the moment. Companies such as executive on the day of the financial crash in 2008. I Currently the consumer is, in my opinion, taking on too where they should be placed, as well as increasing Iceland are leading the supermarket charge and we wanted to reinvigorate SAS and give it a new structure, much responsibility and the plastic pollution issue is all numbers of recycling systems that give waste value in see others trying to do more good and less harm. But and so we built a programme of work on various issues: too often being characterised as a littering issue. It isn’t place to improve domestic recycling in other materials we do need a full system change and we need the just a littering issue, this is very much a plastic pollution so that we don’t ship our contaminated recyclate to far government to intervene in certain places, just as they • The ongoing work on water quality, particularly on issue. At the moment consumers are given products but off places. And new systems need to be developed for have done in legislation that has driven some of the big real-time information about water quality; not always the systems to recycle them effectively. That people to manage the sheer volume of packaging that changes we have seen with plastic bags. It wasn’t just • Climate change and its impacts on our oceans; is something that the producers need to now step up we are exposed to every day. Whether you are eating a an overnight opinion change with consumers saying • Our recreational bathing waters, and to solve. The producers are putting this plastic in the sandwich or drinking a coffee, systems that truly work they didn’t want a plastic bag, it was legislation that • Marine litter and plastic pollution. hands of the public, and without the right systems in to capture the recyclate ready to be turned back into new put the change in at the supermarket level and that’s place those pieces of plastic are effectively weaponised. food-grade packaging or other high-value products need something that SAS campaigned for. We’re now seeing We have been working on the plastic pollution issue for over And even when those pieces of plastic do get recycled to be put in place. That is really important. the same legislation coming through on microbeads. a decade now and we have gone from mobilising around they may have already accumulated a huge number of 500 volunteers a year in 2008, to working this year with recycling miles that are added to the footprint of that the biggest beach-clean community in the UK: some 75,000 product. None of that is good enough. volunteers contribute around 225,000 hours of volunteering © Surfers Against Sewage time to protect our beaches from plastic pollution. Now the government needs to both incentivise and penalise producers, hopefully edging more towards But of course, we can’t just litterpick our way out of the incentivisation to do the right thing and move away from problem; we are working across the board around plastic virgin plastics, reduce the amount of plastics they are pollution, particularly with interventions upstream. using and use more sustainable alternatives, creating We do a lot of this through our all-party parliamentary a truly circular economy with a domestic recycling group (APPG) in Westminster, which is the APPG in economy infrastructure surrounding it. In my opinion, parliament that focuses on marine conservation. Here we the rhetoric is all too often weighted on the consumer bring together politicians, other NGOs, businesses and and the quite-often fictional character, ‘the litterbug’, regulators to discuss policy, legislation and innovation in that industry can use as a fall guy in the public space. relation to various issues in marine conservation. Plastic pollution has been top of the agenda for a while now, and This is entirely a systems failure. There is more and we have worked very successfully on campaigns such more plastic being pumped out, yet we still have the as the plastic bag charge, which has already reduced same bins and recycling structure that we have had the number of plastic bags used in the UK by 10 billion. for years and years without much change. The bins in your park today are the same as they were 20 or 30 years We have also been one of the leading voices in the calls ago. It is clear that the producers really aren’t thinking for a comprehensive deposit return system on beverage about the full life cycle of the product, nor are they containers – cans and plastic bottles are found all too really wanting to take the financial hit to do so. Let’s regularly in our rivers, across the countryside and bear in mind that you and I – or, more accurately, the on our beaches. A deposit return scheme is a proven taxpayer – is paying for the end-of-life processing for method to trap that material in the economy rather than a lot of these products through their council tax: the in the environment. Last year we delivered a petition emptying of bins in our streets, our beaches and in other of more than 30,000 signatures to Downing Street and spaces, the street sweeping. Councils are dealing with now the government is committed to putting that in the end-of-life cost that producers aren’t taking account place; we will be looking at the design of the scheme of, a second cost of the plastic products that consumers over the coming months. purchase through taxation.
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the Treasury about incentives for manufacturers to use more recycled content to wean themselves off of virgin plastics. We should look at the hierarchy of plastics from the pointless to the very useful, because plastic is a fantastically useful substance – it is important that we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. But that’s not to say that we should continue with business as usual, because we know there is a plastic pollution crisis in our oceans and that there is far too much plastic in every part of our environment. The reason it remains there is because plastic is such a strong and durable material, the very same properties that make it useful for wrapping things up and moving things around in. We have got to make sure we are using plastic in the right way, for the right products, with the right systems in place for the end of life so we can put it back into useful products.
The 10 most polluting rivers worldwide for plastic pollution carry around 90 per cent of all plastic contaminants, so how © GUY | Fotolia do surfers against sewage balance encouraging action at home versus tackling the problem in pollution hotspots worldwide? Editor Paddy Fowler First and foremost, I think the notion that those countries are polluting more than us, or the fact that they are, is Guest editor Carolyn Roberts We do need to legislate more around plastic, otherwise we put compostables and bioplastics into the recycling often due to us exporting our contaminated and dirty we may find that we do not have the systems in place stream, they contaminate the traditional oil-based plastic waste to places because we haven’t set up the right systems Subeditor Caroline Beattie that are suitable to really control plastic pollution. We recyclate, which complicates the recycling solutions. We here. So their problem is in fact our problem, driven by [email protected] need to create the toolkit of systems and processes that have also got to think about land used for food balanced our consumption and by the economic model that we can really deal with this material in such a way that it with our demand for bioplastics, so the jury is still out have in place around that consumption. That isn’t their Designer Kate Saker can be conserved and valued. over the potential benefits on that front. wrongdoing, it’s us passing the buck. Let’s view their plastic katesaker.com footprint as our plastic footprint, and whilst we have to do The sources of ocean plastics differ greatly in reality to more good here, we must encourage, help and support the Illustrator Lexie Mac what the public imagines. Do you think that the fishing “We amplify their voice implementation of the right structures to recycle and do www.lexiemac.co.uk industry is being let off the hook? through all of the work we do, more to control that plastic waste. Often there just isn’t any No I don’t, actually. Before the Blue Planet effect and the recycling or waste management in place in these countries. Printer Lavenham Press Ltd great public awareness around single-use plastics that we from the beachfront to the see today, Surfers Against Sewage was working as part of More to the point, with the global backlash against plastic Published by Institution of Environmental Sciences the Global Ghost Gear Initiative with great charities such as front benches of parliament” pollution, we are seeing lots of leadership in developing 3rd Floor World Animal Protection to look at how to better control the countries – the banning of plastic bags and certain 140 London Wall loss of fishing gear. Ghost gear in our oceans kills so much plastics ahead of developed countries, for example. London marine life and the opportunity for industry to get together Surfers Against Sewage really believe that we shouldn’t Often progressive legislation is coming from those areas EC2Y 5DN with the fishers, manufacturers, retailers and the charity just be looking at replacements around plastics though. rather than from the tradition leadership in the west, sector to create a more efficient way of dealing with fishing We have got to start by going back to the waste hierarchy so I think we should look there for inspiration to solve Tel 020 7601 1920 gear is imperative. This pre-dated the great attention that and thinking more about where we can eliminate plastic, the issues at home, too. Email [email protected] we are seeing from government, the public and industry on where can we reduce the resources we are using to Web www.the-ies.org single-use consumer plastics, so there has always been some package and market the products that we have in We have got to work together as it is a global issue and Twitter @IES_UK heat there. There is a great understanding that fishing gear our world. Not just food, but other consumables and we have got to have global solutions. Collaboration, is one of the significant sources of marine plastic pollution electronic goods, and the stuff you receive your online innovation and legislation from across the world. We and so changes in the system are coming too. orders in, wherever we find plastic. We have got to think have to ensure those who are profiting most from If you are interested in advertising in the environmental about elimination first and foremost, as there is clearly the plastics are paying the most to stop their plastics SCIENTIST, please contact: [email protected] Bioplastics is a term that has been thrown around as a too much pointless plastic out there in our systems. polluting the world. potential solution. What are your thoughts on this and other alternates to crude-oil-based plastics? So there is obviously pointless plastic in our systems, but This journal is printed on paper produced by a Programme That’s another really interesting question as it loops plastic is a very useful material, especially in increasing Paddy Fowler is the Publications Officer at the Institution for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) back to systems. Compostables or bioplastics, with the shelf life of many foods, reducing food waste. Should of Environmental Sciences. He studied for an MSc in Science certified supplier. the right systems to capture, recycle and reprocess or our focus be on our better appreciation of plastic rather Communication before joining the IES in 2017. Paddy has a compost could be a really great part of the system. than removing plastic from our world? keen interest in aquatic conservation and an enthusiasm for Copyright © 1971–2018 | The Institution of Environmental But we have to think of all of the impacts of any new I think we need to look at deposit return systems, they are communicating interesting sustainability innovations across the Sciences Ltd. alternative material. Currently, the problem is that if part of a good circular economy. We have been talking to environmental sciences.
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